1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an SNS system, image display method, and storage medium storing a program, capable of displaying an image contributed by a user in a network system such as a social network service or the like so that it can be easily viewed in accordance with the access status of the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, membership-based communication services (social network services, hereinafter referred to as SNSs) have become widespread. An SNS system is a network which generally takes the form of a semi-lattice structure, and in which an aggregate of predetermined units called an actor is used as a node, and an edge serving as a relationship between edges is constructed. A technique of automatically grouping actors in accordance with a keyword is proposed (for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2006-99753).
In such an SNS, members often show photographs accumulated on a server to each other through the network (for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2008-242639).
Hereinafter, a photograph which is uploaded to the server by a user, and is opened to the public on the network as it is or after being subjected to image processing is referred to as a “work”.
Furthermore, a technique of evaluating works contributed to the network is also proposed (for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2009-181262).
According to the technique described in Pat. Document 2, it is possible to carry out exchange of works between users, and evaluation of the works quickly and easily.
However, when a large number of users contribute a large number of works to the server, browsability of the works is degraded because the number of works which can be displayed at a time is limited.
Thus, it is conceivable that a user is enabled to access a work desired by the user by classifying the works into a plurality of categories. A technique of appropriately creating categories, and consolidating the categories is also proposed (for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2007-264985).
However, in the technique described in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2006-99753, keyword groups and names relevant to the groups are only correlated to each other to be grouped and, in the technique described in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2009-181262, classification of the categories is carried out simply in accordance with the number of works, and hence there has been a problem that these techniques are not always easy to use for the users.
Under these circumstances, it is desired to provide a network system, membership-based social network service system, image display method, and storage medium storing a program, capable of displaying works accumulated on a server in an SNS or the like efficiently through a network and by classifying the works into categories in accordance with the interest of the user.